Packet-Based Modeling of Reed–Solomon Block-Coded Correlated Fading Channels Via a Markov Finite Queue Model

We consider the transmission of a Reed-Solomon (RS) code over a binary modulated time-correlated flat Rician fading channel with hard-decision demodulation. We define a binary packet (symbol) error sequence that indicates whether an RS symbol is successfully transmitted across the discrete (fading) channel whose input enters the modulator and whose output exits the demodulator. We then approximate the packet error sequence of the discrete channel (DC) using the recently developed queue-based channel (QBC), which is a simple finite-state Markov channel model with Mth-order Markovian additive noise. In other words, we use the QBC to model the binary DC at the packet level. We propose a general framework for determining the probability of codeword error (PCE) for QBC models. We evaluate the modeling accuracy by comparing the simulated PCE for the DC with the numerically evaluated PCE for the QBC. Modeling results identify accurate low-order QBC models for a wide range of fading conditions and reveal that modeling the DC at the packet level is an efficient tool for nonbinary coding performance evaluation over binary channels with memory.